Case study: Night Parrot surveys and management at Lorna Glen Allan Burbidge and Neil Hamilton

History In district, from 1896 - Keartland at Lake Carnegie Others eg Glen Ayle in 1970s Possible sightings in district mid-late 2009 Lorna Glen: Neil Hamilton & Mike Onus Dec 2009

Response Immediate response : Searched for an hour with head torches, spotlight and night ‘scope Details of sighting recorded that night Motion sensitive cameras next morning Senior staff notified, but sighting not advertised; action plan developed No further disturbance until mist nets arrived from Perth& staff from Kalgoorlie

Follow up Feb 2010, Jun/Jul 2010, Oct 2010, Nov 2011, May 2013, and opportunistic Mist-netting, trapping with drift net, audio recorders, camera traps, spotlighting, night ‘scopes, call broadcast, nest inspections, searching for signs in caves & near water, etc Focus on people with skills & experience with WGP research and searching for NPs Equipment and teams ready for follow-up

ARUs – autonomous recording units

2010 recordings

ARUs – results to date >20 bird species detected No Night Parrot calls detected Still plenty of files to be looked at (1000’s of hours) Difficult without reference calls

Motion sensitive cameras >1000 camera nights, - some with call broadcast - some at natural or artificial water points

Is there a Night Parrot in here? Lorna Glen Pilbara 2005 Time consuming to process Pick locations carefully

Mist-netting 1000’s of mist-net hours

Drift nets and traps

Looking for likely habitat

Signs eg feathers, tracks, nests

Feeding sign Note: parrots cut stems diagonally, but so do rodents (and grasshoppers?) fresh signs ephemeral Mulga Parrot Unknown herbivore

Example: November 2011 survey 11 skilled personnel Net hours 1023 birds 77 bats 29 rodents 2 >300 km spotlighting >17 nests searched ca 20 hours area searches

Why continue at Lorna Glen Historical records Introduced predator management (trapping, baiting) since 2003 – cats, foxes, dogs

Introduced herbivore management – stock removal 2000 onwards – removal of artificial water sources – shooting camels – fencing to reduce entry of camels & cattle

Habitat Management Some very old Triodia (>50 years post fire) Fire management plan* in place Resident caretaker and visiting researchers * Burrows, N., and Butler, R. (2011). 'A Fire Management Plan for Lorna Glen (Matuwa) and Earaheedy (Karara Karara) 2011-2015.' Department of Environment and Conservation, Perth.

Conclusions Four years on ….. Surveys have continued Appropriate on-going management in place Funding always an issue (remote location) (but thanks for support from DPaW region) Efforts limited by lack of knowledge concerning most appropriate survey techniques Still looking …..

Acoustic surveys Boucher, N. J., Burbidge, A. H. and Jinnai, M. 2008. Computer recognition of sounds that have never been heard before. 18th National Australian Institute of Physics Conference, Adelaide. Boucher, N. J. 2009. The SoundID autonomous sound recorder. AudioWings 12: 8-11.